1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an intersection recognizing apparatus and a computer-readable storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a driving support system utilizing an in-vehicle camera has been put into practical use to improve a safety and a convenience of an automobile. In such a driving support system, it is highly significant for realizing functions including a collision avoidance to recognize an intersection in a space for vehicle driving. Recently, a driving support system utilizing a stereo camera has been studied a lot since a stereo camera allows obtaining not only visual information but also distance information.
In a conventional method for recognizing an intersection, an inroad of a vehicle into an intersection is recognized by presupposing the existence of a crossing vehicle around the intersection, recognizing a crossing vehicle based on a luminance image captured by a camera, and obtaining a distance to the crossing vehicle by a radar device. There is a problem of having a difficulty in real time processing with a complicated system configuration in a case where an intersection with no crossing vehicle cannot be recognized.
In Japanese Patent No. 4613738, for example, an imaging device and a radar device are attached at predetermined locations in a vehicle for the purpose of accurately determining an intersection condition, an image recognition processing is performed on a luminance image obtained by the imaging device that captures a forward image of the vehicle, and a crossing vehicle that moves in the intersection is detected as a candidate vehicle. Then, a distance to the detected candidate vehicle is obtained by the radar device and an inroad of the vehicle into the intersection is recognized.
However, since the existence of a vehicle is presupposed for the recognition of the intersection condition and information of the distance to the detected crossing vehicle is obtained by the radar device, there is a problem in Japanese Patent No. 4613738 in that realization of real time performance is difficult with a complicated system configuration in the case where an intersection with no crossing vehicle cannot be recognized.
Therefore, there is a need for an intersection recognizing apparatus capable of precisely recognizing an intersection with a simple configuration and a computer-readable storage medium.